Hendrick Dubbels, 'A Dutch Yacht and Other Vessels Becalmed near the Shore', about 1660-70

A man sits on a spit of land, his body reaching towards the sea, the line of his gaze drawing our eyes to the boats he watches. Perhaps he longs to be on board; perhaps he looks out for someone about to land. Or perhaps he’s just held by the visual poetry of the vessels themselves, the seemingly endless number of blues in the vast sky or the perfect reflections in the limpid water.

Whatever his thoughts, his eager pose – echoed by the man in the prow of the small boat pushing into the picture on the left – leads us past the motionless craft and out towards the distant horizon and the open sea. It lends just a small touch of adventure to an otherwise tranquil scene.

On the right, a Statenjacht (state yacht) waits for the breeze that may get it going. Its sail is barely moving, the Dutch colours at its peak droop and its crew is idle. Lit pale gold by the morning sun, the sails are almost sculptural, a furled cone from the mast, rhythmic folds sweeping down from the peak. Below them, almost perfectly mirrored in the water, is the great scoop of the leeboard (which was lowered to keep the boat steady in a high wind). On the left, another Statenjacht fires a salute, the smoke from the gun puffing out towards a warship nearby. Most of its sails are neatly furled, but there are men at work up on the yards on the one partly lowered sail. The men are little more than dots, but Hendrick Dubbels still manages to portray their industry and concentration with a flick of the brush.

The state yachts were used to transport members or guests of the States General to The Hague, and Dubbels’s picture is presumably set on the coast near the town. The salute was fired when someone of importance came or left the vessel, perhaps from one of the small craft moored alongside.

Life in seventeenth-century Holland was largely lived on the water, and apparently shipping in all its forms held a fascination for the people. There were so many marine artists it seems that if the Dutch weren't on a boat, they were looking at pictures of them. Dubbels was one of the most successful of these artists, and also trained another – Ludolf Bakhuizen (several of his paintings are in the National Gallery’s collection, for example The Eendracht and a Fleet of Dutch Men-of-War and A View across a River near Dordrecht). Dubbels did, like Bakhuizen, paint stormy seas with ships scudding across the water sails billowing, but he is perhaps best known for his tranquil waters, perfect reflections and the colours of his skies.